July 13, 2010, - 3:13 pm
You Won’t Believe This Animal Rights Absurdity
Been meaning to get to this for some time because it’s so ridiculous. Stuff like this doesn’t help the animal rights people’s cause.
When I go to critics’ movie screenings, they are often held in the luxury theater of a local cineplex (while other times they are in uncomfortable seats in an old office building or at a promotional screening with the general public who get free passes). That theater has roomy stadium seating, and the seats, which resemble those in the above photo, are made of soft leather.
At a recent critics’ screening, someone was sitting on the stairs of the stadium seating in what looked like a very uncomfortable chair. It looked to me like he was some kind of guard, preventing us from sitting in the upper seats–sort of like at your typical WNBA game, where they cordon off most of the upper seating and make everyone sit below for camera shots, so it makes it look like there is actually a big audience. But this was a private screening with only a few people in attendance and, like most people at the theater, we watch in the dark. I asked the person sitting in the chair on the steps why he was sitting there. He responded that he’s vegan and refuses to sit in any chair made from “anything with a face or that has kids.”
It’s a free country, and I believe everyone is free to do what he or she wants (though the chair on the steps is a fire and safety hazard). He’s a nice guy and was minding his own business, until I asked what the deal was. (I asked because I’d never seen him before and really thought he was there to block me from sitting farther up, so I wondered about it.) And, in a way, I respect this person for being consistent with his beliefs, unlike the many animal rights phonies and other lefty hypocrites who tell us how to live our lives, but don’t do so themselves.
Still, this is ridiculous. The animals were dead years ago, when the seats were made. Not sitting in them won’t change that. And the rewards or good works of self-torture by sitting in a very uncomfortable synthetic chair escape me. Not a single animal was saved by that. It won’t bring the animals, from which the soft leather was procured, back to life. And no theaters are going to remove their leather seats. The orthodoxy of it all is really pointless.
Like I said, he’s free to do what he wants. And it really isn’t my business. But since I saw it, I can’t help but notice the ludicrous degree to which some people will go for the sake of animal rights or other far-lefty causes. And, sadly, with these movements, it doesn’t stop there. It never does. And that’s the real problem here.
A guy sitting in an uncomfortable chair isn’t the problem and doesn’t bother me. But they–the animal rights thugs–want it to bother me. They want to make me sit in those chairs, too. Today, they request their pro-animal seating arrangement. Tomorrow, they impose that view on my seating. And, then, it is my business.
I, too, believe in animal rights. Right on my dinner plate, next to the carrots. Right under my tush in the stadium seating at the movies. Right on my feet. Right on my waist and legs, when I wear leather skirts and pants. And right on my back in the colder weather. Very delish, very comfy, and very necessary.
Tags: absurd, absurdity, Animal Rights, chairs, leather, leather chairs, leather seating, seating, synthetic, vegan
I love leather. I have an old, well worn, leather bomber jacker. And a winter coat made of sheerling. Bought a leather loveseat and leather recliner two years ago. My car doesn’t have leather seats, but my next one likely will.
Animal rights? The animals they came from were all domesticated, raised specifically for their meat and their hides. It was, if you’ll pardon me, their raison de’etre.
Raymond in DC on July 13, 2010 at 3:36 pm